31 Days Of Hell: The Puppet Master Series Part One

Chris Jordan begins his review of the entire Puppet Master series.

"We are the members of the Lollipop Guild.Now die!"

At the dawn of the 1990s, B-movie mogul Charles Band
reinvented straight-to-video horror with Full Moon Entertainment: a subsidiary
of Paramount Pictures dedicated to low-budget genre films for the VHS and
laserdisc markets. When his theatrical film studio Empire Pictures (Re-Animator,
Ghoulies, Robot Jox) went bankrupt at the end of the '80s, Band rightly saw
that home video was where his particular brand of post-Corman pulp horror and
sci-fi could thrive. Being the shrewd (and some might say cynical) businessman
that he was, he was able to boil what horror fans want in a low-budget B-movie
down to a formula, and with scientific precision he built a new empire on films
that weren't necessarily good, but did their jobs extremely well. While Full
Moon eventually broke away from Paramount and promptly took a nose-dive into
awfulness, those first five years of Paramount/Full Moon movies are some of the
most fun and well-done straight-to-video flicks ever produced. They're goofy
and cheesy, but they know it, and they have just the right sense of humor to
make them hugely enjoyable. And in at least a few areas – good cinematography,
moody atmosphere, great low-budget practical effects – they're honestly quite
well-done.

The first film by Full Moon Entertainment was 1989's Puppet
Master, and it was such a home video hit that it launched a flagship
franchise for the studio and provided them with some iconic mascots. It was so
popular that it often gets named alongside other franchises that were
theatrical releases, like Child's Play, Friday the 13th,
and A Nightmare on Elm Street, and many people forget that the first film
even was straight-to-video. Its pop-cultural significance is hard to deny...
but just how good are these films, two and a half decades after the release of
the first few? The series is way too big for just one review, so for now let's
take a look at the first three films, and see how they hold up to the nostalgic
memories.

Puppet Master (1989)

Full Moon's reign begins with a fantastic,
imagination-grabbing opening sequence that introduces us to 1930s toymaker
Andre Toulon and his living puppets. It's a great scene, packing some fun
effects, a unique supernatural premise, and a genuine shock. Viewers are
immediately hooked, and in just these first few minutes Toulon's sentient
puppets are already horror icons. The puppets display personality, and great
character actor William Hickey brings a warmth and humanity to Toulon that is
rather unexpected in a film like this. Then, with the movie's success already
more or less secured, it proceeds to flash forward to the present day and
settle into a routine of mediocrity.

"No one better touch my sex puppets!"

Puppet Master has a few things that it does really
well – and it builds its entire success on those strong points – while the rest
of it is exactly what you'd expect from a straight-to-video flick of this era,
and never really matches the strength of its opening prologue. But that's
ultimately not a deal-breaker, because it delivers the goods in the two areas
that viewers really want: spooky gothic atmosphere, and killer puppets. Let's
be honest – the puppets are why we're here. The human characters, aside from
Hickey's small but memorable role as Andre Toulon, are entirely disposable, but
most viewers won't be too bothered because the larger-than-life tiny villains
steal all their scenes.

This ultimately, though, only results in a half-satisfying
film. Puppet Master has some major flaws, and when all is said and done
it's enjoyable for what it is, but isn't one of Full Moon's best films. Of the
four main characters, one is a lot of fun, one is incredibly flat and
forgettable (and boasts one of the worst hair styles ever), and two are
bizarrely over-the-top and out-of-place, not in a good way. This unevenness
also carries over to the script: when it's good, it does some pretty cool and
unique things, but when it's bad... it's bad. Early Full Moon films, at their
best, have a fun, campy, pretty retro and sometimes even naïve attitude about
them; they feel like throwback drive-in features amped up with awesome '90s
practical effects. For the most part, they don't go for sleaze or shock value.
There are a few moments where Puppet Master does – and one where it just
goes too far for no reason – and these moments feel out of place. Most of the
movie is goofy and fun and nostalgia-inducing... so when out of nowhere
there's a (thankfully brief and non-explicit) rape scene for no reason except
to add shock and sleaze, it's painfully unwelcome. Pro tip to horror
filmmakers: never do that. It just grinds the fun of the movie to a halt and
makes it feel misogynistic and uncomfortable. The same goes for two psychics
whose main character traits are horniness: it's a bizarre and unnecessary
shoehorned-in bit of exploitation that clashes with the rest of the script, and
the inconsistency hurts the movie. It's as if it isn't sure if it wants to be a
retro drive-in movie or a grindhouse exploitation flick, and trying to have it
both ways hurts it. Which is a shame, because when it's in retro drive-in mode,
it's a lot of fun. The Old Dark House atmosphere is very well-crafted, and the
story has a really cool and unique mythology behind the puppets and their
powers. The puppets themselves are great: the special effects are honestly
really good, with some excellent claymation work by David Allen (Willow,
Ghostbusters II, The Howling). In particular, Blade – a Jack the Ripper-ish
puppet modeled after Klaus Kinski – is a very memorable little villain. The
cinematography is strong with plenty of steadicam work, and the art design and
blue-tinted lighting gives it a great vintage-horror aesthetic. These are
usually the high-points of any early Full Moon movie; it's just too bad that
the script wasn't given the same level of care and scrutiny.

Ultimately, the scenes involving the puppets are great, and
the opening scene and last act serve to create an interesting mythology, but
most other areas are disappointing. The script needed some work, and the
moments of sleaze clash uncomfortably with the things about the film that
clearly just want to be fun. As a fan of what Full Moon would soon become
before I actually saw this film, I was hoping for something better. Still, for
its strong points it is probably worth a look for fans of this era in horror,
and the seeds are clearly planted for a fun franchise. By focusing on the
puppets and their mythology instead of this particular group of human
characters, and by fixing this script's problems, there's clearly potential for
a series to follow that's better than this initial film.

Score

Puppet Master II (1990)

The original Puppet Master was so wildly successful
for Paramount and Full Moon that a sequel was ordered immediately, and rushed
onto store shelves just one year later. Puppet Master II follows the
formula of its predecessor pretty closely, as a group of paranormal
investigators come to the same spooky old hotel from the first film, and
likewise run afoul of the murderous little puppets. But despite the
near-identical premise, this sequel has some cool tricks up its sleeve –
including a new addition to the puppet army – and it delivers exactly the
funhouse of carnage that fans would hope for. It addresses some of the problems
the first film had, but largely it just trades them for new problems of its
own, rather than making any great improvement. But while it may not be an
objectively better film than the original, I would argue that it is a more fun
and enjoyable one.

"Wanna play hooky?"

The biggest narrative improvement is that Puppet Master II
is much more totally consistent than its predecessor, and altogether less
sleazy. The first film greatly suffered from its indecision over whether to be
a funhouse of horrors or a grindhouse exploitation flick, but this one sits
firmly in the funhouse category from the opening frame. Gone are the
out-of-place moments of sleaze, replaced by an even greater emphasis on
campy/gory puppet mayhem. This makes it a much easier film to enjoy, and takes
a step in the right direction towards realizing the first movie's potential for
the franchise. But as soon as it has addressed the film's flaws, it trades them
for new ones. Puppet Master, for all its problems, created a unique and
imaginative mythology of alchemy and magic, which Puppet Master II almost
entirely ignores or rewrites. Instead, it offers a slightly different origin
for the puppets, rooted in routine and cliché mad-scientist tropes, and in the
process it creates some glaring continuity flaws. Not least of which is totally
altering the backstory and motives of Andre Toulon, the first film's most
interesting character. All of these things are changes for the worse, and the
result is a fairly confused and cobbed-together story. It's made even stranger
by the knowledge that Puppet Master III would ignore or walk back at
least some of these narrative meddlings.

But ultimately all of that can be more or less overlooked,
because it does a great job of delivering what we really want the film to
deliver. Let's be honest, we're not watching Puppet Master II for
high-quality writing; we're watching it to see evil puppets wreck stuff. And do
they ever. One big benefit that this sequel enjoys is that it doesn't need to
introduce us to the puppets, since they're already established as the real main
characters. Literally the first image of the movie is an evil puppet doing its
evil-puppet thing, and that sets the tone for the whole film. With the focus so
strongly on the tiny villains’ shenanigans, this feels much less like the
original’s supernatural slasher movie vibe, and much more like a
little-monsters flick along the lines of Ghoulies
or the Critters sequels.

David Allen’s special effects are front and center once again
– and again there are some great stop-motion sequences, which form the film’s
most memorable moments. Allen also took the director’s chair this time around –
though unfortunately, he proves to be not as strong a director as he is an
effects artist. Perhaps due to his inexperience as a director, or perhaps due
to the rushed production, Puppet Master
II is not quite as well-shot as the first film; not bad, but with a visual
style that is more utilitarian than artistic. The cast is likewise serviceable
but not great; at the very least much less irritating and over-the-top than
most of the first film’s characters, but no less generic.

Objectively speaking Puppet
Master II isn’t any better than Puppet
Master, nor any worse; it basically just trades strengths and weaknesses.
But that said, I certainly had more fun with part II. It delivered the stuff
that I had wanted the original to deliver, and it did it better, even if the
story was worse. I’m not sure I would exactly recommend it much more than I would
recommend the first, so I’ll say the same thing I said about that one: if
you’re a genre fan, it’s probably worth a look. But next up is the one that is
commonly viewed as the best of the series; the sequel where the franchise is
said to really grow into its own. Let’s see just how true that common wisdom
is…

Score

Puppet Master III:
Toulon’s Revenge (1991)

Just when it seemed like the Puppet Master series had settled into a trend of mediocrity, Toulon
and his toys do something even more impressive than their usual magical
nastiness: they actually give us a good movie. Not just fun-but-bad; honestly
enjoyable and solidly made. The rumors are true: Puppet Master III: Toulon’s Revenge really is the moment when the
series realizes its potential and sets itself apart from the tiny-monster
crowd. This sequel finally finds that balance between fun effects sequences and
an actual good story that had eluded both of its predecessors in different
ways. It also takes the series’ story in a very logical new direction: since
the puppets were basically the things that everyone liked about the first two
movies, it not only makes the film all about them, but actually makes them the
good guys. Or at least the antiheroes.

Puppet Master III
is actually a prequel, giving us an origin story for Toulon and his puppets.
It’s a slightly different origin story than the one we got in flashback in part
2, but that’s for the best: this is a big improvement that undoes some of the
first sequel’s continuity flaws. It introduces us to Andre Toulon (played this
time by Guy Rolfe) as a kindly puppeteer in early-1940s Berlin, who is forced
by the events of World War II to use his magic to fight the Nazis. Soon the
puppets are full-on resistance fighters, battling against the sadistic SS Major
Kraus (Richard Lynch, doing his best Klaus Kinski). Their tactics may be as
bloody and over-the-top as ever, but hey, when they’re killing Nazis that’s ok,
right?

"I can't find Buzz Lightyear anywhere!But when I do, he's dead!"

The decision to reframe the puppets from mini-slashers to
Nazi hunters was an inspired one, as it serves both to give them a more
compelling back-story, and to allow the viewers to more freely do what we were
pretty much already doing anyway: root for them. Sure, they’re still pretty
sadistic – more vengeful antihero than outright good guy – but desperate times
call for desperate measures, and it’s immensely satisfying to see them slice
and dice through Hitler’s troops. Toulon’s story also gets much more depth, and
the film allows us to reconcile how someone who seems like such a nice guy could
have created such vicious creatures.

As Toulon, Guy Rolfe gives a very good performance, with a
dramatic range that brings humanity and relatability to his character’s journey
and decisions. The story of Puppet Master
III is definitely the strongest yet, but the script certainly has its share
B-movie flaws, and Rolfe’s performance has enough depth to gloss over those
flaws and sell the sometimes ham-fisted dialogue. Lynch goes in the opposite
direction when it comes to making the script work: he simply turns up the crazy
and gives us the most ruthless and sadistic bad-guy he can. It definitely
works: he is just the sort of truly evil villain the film needs to get us 100%
behind the once-villainous puppets as heroes.

click to buy

Since they are the protagonists, the puppets themselves get a
lot more screen time in Puppet Master III,
just hanging out and doing their thing even when they’re not fighting the
Nazis. This likewise lends them some depth, and also allows David Allen’s
effects work to stand out even more than it did in the previous two films. This
sequel certainly has the highest volume of effects shots, both of the
stop-motion variety and some very complex wire puppets. The rest of the
production looks good, but rough around the edges due to its budget level and
B-grade direction; anyone who knows B-movies knows that David DeCoteau is no
great director. Allen’s effects, however, look solid all the way, and that they
get so much visibility does a lot to give the film a visual flair.

It took three tries to do it, but finally Full Moon put
together the strong flick that we wanted Puppet
Master to be in the first place. It’s still unquestionably a low-ish-budget
B-movie, but within that realm it’s a good one. For the first time in the
series the plot works as well as the effects, and it’s a uniformly strong (if
still kind of cheesy) package. Plus, since it’s a prequel, it does not require
familiarity with the first two to enjoy. If you’re only going to see one Puppet Master movie, skip the others and
make it this one; it’s really the only one you need.

Score

Of course, this isn’t nearly the end of the Puppet Master saga. Two more entries in
the series were made during Full Moon’s golden age when they were at Paramount,
and a handful more after that. We’ll continue reviewing the series, so check
back for part 2 in which we cover the two-film story arc of Puppet Master 4 and 5. In the mean time, you can probably give the first two films a
pass unless you really like this kind of movie, but definitely consider
checking out Puppet Master III to add
some tiny terror to your Halloween.